As this is the CMA board, I'd be very wary of appropriating even accurate sources about Japanese and Korean training and the social roles of the warrior castes and simply assuming that it was the same in China. That is, I assumed that the OP was asking about Chinese history, and not casting a wide net over Asian martial arts, in which case the answer could only be, "Depends! What country, what region, which era?"

Word for the wise: in China, the military was not a high-status social formation.

I assumed that the OP was asking about Chinese history, and not casting a wide net over Asian martial arts

Yeah, lets run with that at this point. See, my knowledge of Chinese history is overwhelmingly influenced by Jackie Chan movies, so I'm wondering if there ever was a period of time when you had the schools-full-of-students-training-full-time thing going on. If there ever was a time when the animal-styles of Kung Fu (crane, praying mantis, monkey etc) were ever used in earnest, and not as a sort of religious/performance/meditation thing. Were martial arts ever practiced by the peasant class?

See, I don't really buy the martial art as a necessary self-defence thing for the lower classes. I mean, even Brock Esnar or etc would be pretty useless against a band of mounted raiders. He might be able to defend himself, but his wife and kids would be screwed. Even the best swordsman in the world would have a tough time unarmoured against a bunch of half-trained badboys with the odd shortbow and some flaming torches. If Mr McChinesePeasant only has 3 hours of leisure time a week after working in the fields all day, I'm pretty sure he's spending it the same as western peasants did, getting wasted.

But yeah, my knowledge here is pretty slim, so any serious sources of Chinese social history would be appreciated.

But one thing to check is one's premisesówere clan wars between Shitholia and East Shitholia really a matter of fights between a "band of mounted raiders" on the one hand and our gap-toothed bumpkins with their gongfu on the other? What would the cats who can already afford horses need with poor villagers except for the occasional bag of rice? People often just fought their neighbors over bullshit like whose oxen get to **** where, and which girl is going to be forced to marry the ugliest hunchback in town. You know, peasant stuff.

And sure, lots of folks would kick back and get wasted, but what else is new? How many fat ol' Americans ever see the inside of a gym except during the month of January? Cookies and American Idol await, after all! But some do nonetheless roll out for a boxing class, or are on the wrestling team or lift boring weights...

And we have plenty of people here in the US too whose job it is to answer phones or move boxes. But we also have SOME Americans whose job involves playing the guitar or doing magic tricks or walking a tightrope or telling jokesóand many of them are mediocre performers who just travel third-rate performance circuits, even if they call themselves "The Amazing Clown-O" or are critically acclaimed for their work.

Societies are very big.

Were there schools and courtyards and whatnot? Sure, in places and times. Did it look like the movies? Not anymore than Manhattan apartments in Woody Allen films look like the cramped and dirty shoeboxes I used to live in when I was in New York.

Great hunks of the book Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals: A Historical Survey happen to be online at Google Books. A glance may be enlightening:

There you go. I had to step back before I said something silly. The problem with most question like this are lack of research and perceptions.

The funny thing about MA movies is the misconception. If you watch Jackie Chan movies there are more normal peasants getting killed, running out of bars/restaurants, and getting beat down than can actually fight.

We have gang fights, going on right now as I type. You know over turf, colors, land they don't own, who screwed whose girl, etc etc etc.

Step out of the 21st century and research the past times. People basically policed themselves in the time periods you named. There were more town meetings and town discussions.

As the saying goes, as much as things change the more they stay the same.

I won't use wiki anymore, I had doubt about it even when I was using it. I should start using english sources. I got way too denpendent on non English sources.

As this is the CMA board, I'd be very wary of appropriating even accurate sources about Japanese and Korean training and the social roles of the warrior castes and simply assuming that it was the same in China. That is, I assumed that the OP was asking about Chinese history, and not casting a wide net over Asian martial arts, in which case the answer could only be, "Depends! What country, what region, which era?"

Only reason I went to Japanese and Korean matter was because op didn't specify CMA, instead he used the term TMA and asked for situation during 1500 (he specified era) China and etc (wasn't sure if op was just asking for China or China+other Asian courntries). Maybe I didn't quite understand what op was asking for :/

Assuming op just wanted information on how CMAists made a living in the past, I want elaborate on:

It seems that in a lot of lineages, a lot of them also doubled as doctors/physicians/herbalists.

I contacted my friend's father who practice acupuncture/herbal medicine, and he said indeed many CMAists made a living by practicing acupuncture/herbal medicine. According to him, many concepts such as flow of qi/ki/chi and pressure points/acupuncture points (for lack of better word) overlapped in practice of acupuncture as well as CMA. Also, he said that CMAist knew how to fix dislocated shoulders and broken bones from first hand experience with injuries that occured during MA training. Hopefully this is kind of info op wants.

This is exactly the sort of thing I was after. Thanks for the responses everyone.

As an aside, I think it's pretty cool how we're seeing the rise of family-based arts again (ie, Gracie & Machado fighting), just as you did back in the past in China.

It's interesting that parts of the West had a religious/martial tradition (ie, the Greeks or Vikings, who saw near universal martial training as part of a wider religious & civic obligation) similar to the stuff described in the above book, but it died out.

Also what is interesting is that so many religions merged spiritual and physical virtues (ie, healthy body, healthy spirit), but Christianity never appropriated that cultural belief really. Ie, for many pre-Christian societies, a virtuous or good man was a strong man (be it Greek, Scandinavian, or Chinese(?)). But post the wide spread of Christianity, martial prowess was in large part identified with 'bad people'. Saints are almost universally NOT fighters (apart from obvious exceptions like St George). I mean, you had the attempt to Christianise the professional warrior class with knights & chivalry and all that, but I seriously doubt many knights lived anywhere near the Arthurian ideal.

I understand your desire for citation however i would appreciate a little guidance as to what you consider to be appropriate source material regarding the history of TMA in China. I ask because most reference works are heavily influence by the revisionist influences of incoming dynasties and the difficulty in accurately interpreting source material.

You can see from my profile that i live in China and am working on a thesis based on TMA. I am happy to provide source material but do you want scanned copies of old chinese documents posted on the site? (They don't exist on the web and for the most part have not been previously referenced in other publications)

I would lastly point out that many of the better known works (though by no means all) are only considered to be authoriative because of a lack of alternative work by westerners in this area, whilst many authoritative chinese works were heavily influenced by the political climate of the time.

BJJ might make you a better ground fighter, but Judo will make you a better dancer.

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Originally Posted by It is Fake

The funny thing about MA movies is the misconception. If you watch Jackie Chan movies there are more normal peasants getting killed, running out of bars/restaurants, and getting beat down than can actually fight.

That's why I love Jackie Chan. More often than not he's getting the **** kicked out of himself too, 90% of his fight scenes are him trying to run away.